The name is absent

19

negotiating mandate.¹³ It was not until the Tokyo Round (1973-1979) that a more uniform method of
customs valuation was incorporated in the rules, as Destler (1986, p. 63) has noted.

The difficulty in arriving at rules widely regarded as fair also sometimes stems less from large
differences in normative beliefs about fairness than from the technical complexity of the issue. Every
national market functions within a framework of norms, laws, institutions and more informal customs that
both facilitate and restrict market-driven transactions. While there are certainly some strong, but broad,
similarities among the advanced market economies, as, for instance, in commercial laws, the differences
in more specific practices are legion. Technical barriers to trade are one such instance, and the agreement
reached during the Tokyo Round on these barriers was rightly regarded as a significant accomplishment.
While recognizing the right of countries to set their own standards in matters like health, the environment,
and consumer safety, the agreement encouraged countries to move toward internationally agreed
standards that would facilitate the flow of trade. At the same time, by requiring greater transparency in
national inspection and certification procedures, it lessened fears that technical standards would be
manipulated to discriminate against traded products. The benefits of the agreement were expected to be
reciprocal and therefore accepted as equitable. Its test, however, has lain entirely in whether the specific
standards applied by individual countries to particular categories of products are seen as fair by others.
(The beef hormone case to be discussed in a later section on procedural justice is one instance of
disagreement.)

Agreement about the fairness of proposed rules is always more difficult, and sometimes
impossible, to reach when the rules address issues embedded more deeply in national preferences for
public goods. It has always been recognized, for instance, that subsidies could nullify or impair the
market-access commitments made by countries in trade negotiations, and that some discipline to define
the impermissible was needed. But virtually all countries have made, and still make, extensive use of
subsidies in support of a wide range of social and economic purposes. These run from income support for

¹³ It was this experience that led to the introduction in the 1970s of the “fast track” procedure under which the U.S.
Congress would have an up or down vote on the entire package of a trade negotiation submitted to it by the

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